Have you seen the headless pirate of Seahorse Key?

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Looking for a fun ghost story? (Aren’t we all?)

If you, like me, love ghost stories, you probably already know that pirates make for excellent ghost. That’s because the tales of their death are charged with greed and violence. The Headless Pirate of Seahorse Key makes for one such story. It involves an island about 3 miles west of Cedar Key: Seahorse Key.

Cedar Key

You’ll find Cedar Key about three hours north of Tampa Bay on the Gulf of Mexico, at the western terminus of SR 24. Once upon a time, Cedar Key was a bustling sea port, with ships bringing goods to the railroad there.

That was before the Civil War. During the Civil War, Union troops trashed the railroads in the South, and the one that ran to Cedar Key was no exception. Throughout the years, Cedar Key never really regained its footing as a significant port. That’s actually a good thing, though, because Tampa took its place, and I cannot conceive of Cedar Key looking anything like Tampa. It’s a quiet fishing village, with tourists dribbling in and out here and there. Today, clams drive Cedar Key’s economy.

There Be Pirates

But during the 18th century and part of the 19th century, boat captains knew the area well, and that included pirates. “Pirate” isn’t necessarily a pejorative — Captain Henry Morgan was a pirate according to the Spanish, but the British knighted him.

And while “pirate” isn’t necessarily an insult, it does seem that some of the folks associated with piracy don’t always walk strictly inside the lines of the law. One pirate, Jean Lafitte, was no exception.

Lafitte was a pirate who operated first out of New Orleans, where he and his brother Pierre owned a blacksmith shop that did a little too well for a blacksmith shop. That’s because it wasn’t; it was a front for their storehouse for not only smuggled goods, but things the Lafitte brothers gained through their work as privateers. Privateer is one of many politically correct words for “pirate”.

The War of 1812

So the Lafitte brothers were pirates, yes, but they were pirates who helped the United States in the War of 1812. Lafitte assisted Andrew Jackson in the battle of New Orleans; history credits him with helping the US win the war.

According to Brittanica, Lafitte ” interrupted his illicit adventures to fight heroically for the United States in defense of New Orleans in the War of 1812.”

He didn’t have wholly altruistic motives, though: He asked Jackson for a full pardon in exchange for assisting the U.S.

Jackson agreed. Lafitte apparently promised to change his ways, he helped the U.S. win the War of 1812, and all was good, right?

Well…

Lafitte returned to his pirate ways after the war, and as pirates — or, as Lafitte called himself, buccaneers — do, he found himself with a bit of treasure. Now, not only would other people perhaps want to take some of his treasure, since he wasn’t supposed to be pirating at all , he couldn’t very well wave it around, could he? Instead, he hid his treasure on an island and charged one of his men with guarding it.

Seahorse Key

That island was Seahorse Key.  Lafitte left that guard, a man named Pierre LeBlanc, with the treasure, a horse and, we can assume, some basic provisions. LeBlanc had one job: Guard the treasure.

And he did it swimmingly… until he didn’t. According to legend, a stranger arrived on Seahorse Key — his name is lost to us now — and befriended LeBlanc.  They became drinking buddies. And, eventually, LeBlanc trusted this stranger enough that he explained why he was all alone on this island, and showed him where the treasure was.

(You can see where this is going.)

One night shortly thereafter, LeBlanc got drunk— there probably wasn’t a whole lot else to do on Seahorse Key — and the stranger took the treasure. When LeBlanc awoke, he tried to get the treasure back, and a fight ensued. LeBlanc lost the fight when the stranger beheaded him.

Now, the reality is, if that’s true, who was left to tell the story? The nameless stranger? I’ve always thought it was more likely that this was the story LeBlanc tried to sell to Lafitte when he returned for the treasure, and Lafitte beheaded him, but no matter: LeBlanc was left lacking an attached head.

And so, it’s his ghost you will see  riding along Seahorse Key at night. As the name suggests, you’ll see the ghost of a headless pirate. You’ll know him from his horse. Here, the legend is quite specific in that it specifies the ghost rides a palomino. If you see a headless pirate on a bay or chestnut, you have the wrong ghost.

I wrote about the headless pirate of Seahorse Key once before, when I worked at Creative Loafing.